


Don't Let Go of Us

by PrioritiesSorted



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2390711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrioritiesSorted/pseuds/PrioritiesSorted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she is born, Jem Walker’s brother cradles her in his tiny arms, gazing down at her like she is the most precious thing he has ever seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Let Go of Us

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be mostly about Jem and Rick but then it became about Jem and Kieren and Rick and somehow I am even sadder than I thought I'd be.

When she is born, Jem Walker’s brother cradles her in his tiny arms, gazing down at her like she is the most precious thing he has ever seen.

 

Toddling around the living room, her mother watching on with a smile, there are two pairs of arms that shoot out to catch her when she stumbles.

 

Kieren draws her for the first time when he is eight and she is four; the lines are wobbly and the colours are bright and she pins it proudly above her peg at school.

 

One her fifth birthday, Rick lets her clamber onto his back and they race around the garden until they collapse, exhausted, on the soft grass. Kieren grins down at them until Rick pulls him down and they become one mess of limbs, shrieking and laughing and joyful.

 

When she is eight (and Kieren is twelve, and Rick is just thirteen) they show her the cave. The darkness is scary but when Rick asks her if she’s afraid, she scoffs at him. She’s not afraid of anything. They sit in the candlelight together and eat so much chocolate she knows they’ve ruined their dinner, but Jem doesn’t care that her Mum will tell her off, because she is _part_ of something. She is part of _them._

 

A week after her tenth birthday, the sound of the door slamming makes her jump. She has never seen Kieren this distressed before, and she is paralysed as he pushes past her up the stairs to his bedroom. Her parents look worriedly at each other, but say nothing. When she knocks lightly on his door later, she cracks it open to see him throwing half a broken CD into the bin. For the first time in her life, Jem’s brother tells her to go away.

 

When she is eleven, she figures out that Rick is letting her win when they play video games. She puts her hands on her hips and tells him she wants a proper fight. Rick looks from her to Kieren (curled up on the sofa behind them, content to watch) and sees Kier give a small nod before Rick grins.

“You’re on, short stuff.”

 

Jem is twelve when she notices that Kieren and Rick don’t look at each other the way they look at her. To her, Rick has always been like a second sibling, but perhaps it is not that way for Kieren. It isn’t that they’re _more_ than brothers, they’re just _different._ Jem can’t conceive of loving someone _more_ than she loves Kieren, not even Patrick Stump or Orlando Bloom or sweet, funny, Henry Lonsdale who asked her to go with him to the school disco. Love, she decides, is very weird.

 

Jem is thirteen, and she is striding through the sterile corridors of her school; students part like waves before her, and she wonders idly if they do so because they know she is angry. Jem finds Rick where she knew he would be: out on the football field with his stupid mates, the ones who call Kieren a nancy, who bump him in the corridors. Rick waves them off when he sees her approaching, and she gives no word of warning before she barrels into him, pushing with all her might. She is tiny compared with him, but he stumbles backwards nonetheless. His eyes have deep, dark circles beneath them. Jem is still angry, still full to the brim with righteous rage, but she can’t direct it at Rick any longer. When she lunges towards him again, it is to throw her arms around his waist. He presses his face into her hair and whispers,

“Next time I’ll be brave, Jem. I promise. As brave as you.”

 

Jem is fourteen, and she has never felt so powerless. Kieren slips away from her just like Rick did: quietly, without any warning. He goes to school and sits at the table and sometimes he scribbles dark, frightening images onto canvas, but he is not really there. She cries herself to sleep the night they hear about the roadside bomb, and Kieren lets her crawl into his bed and cling to him in the dark. He is strangely cold, even beneath the blanket, and she hugs him more tightly to her, desperately hoping that he knows how much he loves him. It occurs to her later that this is the last time she ever touches him.

Jem Walker is fourteen, and her brothers are dead. 

She hadn't done enough. 

 

She is not allowed to turn fifteen before the dead rise. There is only a moment of flickering doubt (because Kieren _can’t_ be one of them, he _can’t_ ) before Jem signs up for Bill Macy’s Human Volunteer Force. She is not a perfect shot by any means, but she is considerably better than most of the boys lining up (too eager) behind her. Bill looks her up and down, impressed, and asks her where she learned that. There is no sympathy for him in her voice when she says,

“Rick taught me.”


End file.
